This interview was originally published by THE LOCATION GUIDE on 4th February 2020 https://lnkd.in/fCTVFc4

Images copyright by A Film Company Gmbh and Eric Madeja

Working and living in Southeast Asia since the late 1990s, Location Manager Eric Madeja has worked on many high-end TV productions in remote terrain and under difficult conditions. TLG talks to Eric about managing the feature film shoot for Paradise War in the extreme conditions of the Bornean rainforest and his passion for the job.

Paradise War is the true story of a Swiss environmental activist who became Malaysia’s enemy of the State. In the 1980s Bruno Manser lived for years with groups of the nomadic Penan tribe in the last pockets of Sarawak’s virgin rainforest before he started campaigning for human rights of indigenous people and against deforestation. He vanished in 2000 without a trace.

How did you get involved with Paradise War – The Bruno Manser Story?

In Switzerland, Bruno Manser is a household name and synonymous with protecting the rainforest of Borneo. When I heard that a Swiss production company was planning to shoot the story of Bruno for the big screen, I put my name forward. Being Swiss and based in Borneo for more than 20 years, the story is of personal interest to me and I wanted to be part of it.

Why now? Does the film’s theme intend to exploit the current public sentiment surrounding environmental issues?

This film couldn’t have hit the big screen and zeitgeist in a timelier manner. But to be fair to the producers, Paradise War was 10 years in the making and conceived long before the recent public debate and outrage around our planet’s climate emergency started.

Paradise War Feature Film on Set
copyright A Film Company GMBH

What was your role in it and where was it filmed?

The producers shot on 3 different continents and engaged me to oversee service production for Southeast Asia. To my surprise, the executive producers wanted to emphasize authenticity, to feature the people, language, circumstances and locations as truthful to the actual story as possible. This meant we had to film in the rainforest on the island of Borneo.

Borneo is being shared by three countries; Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. Most of the events featured in the film took place between 1984 and 2000 in the Malaysian State of Sarawak and at the time, the Malaysian government declared Bruno Manser as a “persona non-grata”. Unfortunately, filming permit regulations in Malaysia did not allow us to tell the story at the original sites in Sarawak, so we decided to find shooting locations in the nearby Indonesian province of North Kalimantan.

Pristine Rainforest Stream in Borneo, copyright Eric Madeja

What challenges did you encounter?

Pretty much everything was a challenge, but I knew what I had signed up for. Nobody had ever attempted to shoot a feature film in rural Kalimantan. It has very limited infrastructure and scouting for locations took the good part of 3 months, driving thousands of kilometres on dusty and bumpy dirt roads using off-road vehicles.

A particularly sensitive issue was getting the logging scenes right. The production’s budget didn’t allow us to completely build our own set and hire all the machinery to make it look like a real logging operation, so we decided to film actual, legal logging activities. We had to pursue a fine balance between explaining the loggers of what we wanted to film, but at the same time make them understand that we didn’t want them to do anything they wouldn’t do anyway as part of their normal daily operation. In order the get the shots we wanted, the 2nd Unit had to be on standby for weeks and adjust to the logger’s operations schedule, which was shifting for weather and other reasons.

Keep in mind that we are dealing with the multi-billion-dollar timber industry, time is money, and a film crew on location is pretty much just a nuisance. Nonetheless, we managed to get access and the film includes some shocking scenes of cutting down actual, age-old, rainforest giants. Many of the crew members involved in filming these scenes, including myself, felt shaken by how much “collateral damage” is done to the environment to harvest these large trees, which ends up being used in products consumed by all of us, such as the paper cup that comes with your favourite coffee, the single-use chopsticks with your Asian take-a-way meal or the plywood used for your office desk.

Borneo Logging Operation, copyright Eric Madeja

How did the cast and crew adjust to the local conditions?

It was interesting as we had three distinctive “groups” on the set; the European cast and crew, the Indonesian crew from the megacity Jakarta and the local, native cast, crew and extras. The latter who pretty much all were new to any kind of film production. It was culture shock pure for many and with no surprise little conflicts, issues and misunderstandings between the groups were common, especially during the first few weeks. I often had to help communicate and find solutions, bridging between the cultural differences. We had over 70 shooting days in Borneo and many of the crew members, local and foreign, told me that it was a positive, eye-opening and inspiring experience for them.

Paradise War – Local Crew & Extras

What do you love about being a Location Manager and Fixer?

I have always had a passion for managing and organising complex activities. I would like to make the life of producers and crew easier, so they can focus on what they came to do.

And then there is the travelling. Scouting new locations is by far my favourite part of the production process. I love to explore the remote and unknown, it’s almost like getting paid to be a backpacker again, only with a more serious agenda and a different approach.

Eric Madeja scouting film locations in Asia

What is your favourite location and why?

When I first came to Asia in the early 1990’s I spent a lot of time exploring Indonesia, intrigued by its extreme diversity of cultures, landscapes, wildlife and its incredible ocean and island environment. I have a great passion for the marine environment. I love sailing, scuba diving and practice underwater photography.

Eric Madeja – Avid Marine Photographer

If I could choose a dream production and location, it would be a new version of 20’000 leagues under the sea filmed in the very remote Banda Islands in Indonesia, 7 small islands, one of which is a tiny active volcano, surrounded by 8km deep waters, within a prolific and pristine marine environment. It’s stunning.

Another favourite film location is the Danum Valley in the State of Sabah in East Malaysia. It’s a heaven for natural history productions. I have worked on a lot of wildlife productions in Borneo and I’m amazed by the intriguing and often never filmed before wildlife behaviour we keep on capturing on camera.

How do you see the future of filming in Asia?

Red tape, difficult logistics and limited professional manpower can still be a major drawback for bigger productions, but things are looking up; Most Southeast Asian countries realize that the filming industry can contribute to their economy. Filming permit processing in Malaysia and Indonesia has become more streamlined over the past years. Malaysia has even introduced filming incentives, especially for larger productions. The domestic TVC market is booming, helping the industry to grow its manpower pool. I believe in the coming years, production of local content will increase, a trend that has already been embraced by the big streaming companies, answering to the demand of hundreds of millions of internet-savvy Asians.

The first week of 2020 has already gone by and according to many Sci-Fi movies released during my adolescence, time travel supposed to be invented by now, or at least we should have been invaded by aliens from another universe. Since these predictions didn’t seem to have occurred (although some people say otherwise), I will take 5 minutes to reflect on last year’s achievements at @AsiaFixer. What an interesting and busy year it was, here are our highlights in 2019:

Shooting wildlife conservation stories with Dame #JudiDench all over #Sabah #Malaysia for her #WildBorneoAdventure shown on #ITV was a real pleasure. Not only is she an absolute “pro”, but also the most engrossing and cordial “talent” I have worked with.

Judy Dench with the Madeja Family

Also on top of my 2019 list was filming groundbreaking #NaturalHistory with our Bristol based friends @OffspringFilms. State-of-the-art low-light camera sensor technology made it the year of the “Night Shoots” and we are looking forward to watching #OffspringFilms mind-blowing footage shot for #EarthAtNight, soon to be released on @AppleTVPlus

I very much enjoyed being the local producer for @BBCTravelShow special on #Sarawak #Malaysia. Sarawak on Borneo has so much #culture, #nature and #adventure to offer. We had a great crew and a fun presenter with Mike Corey @fearlessandfar!

Another great production was joining adventurer @RyanPyle exploring #MountKinabalu, one of the highest mountains in Southeast Asia for his upcoming show #ExpeditionAsiaTV @DiscoverySEAsia. Spending a lot of time in #rainforests and at #sea, I almost forgot how striking and picturesque #mountainlandscapes can be!

AsiaFixer with Ryan Pyle & Crew

We are also happy to support the #BBC ‘s Natural History Unit @BBCNHU on one of their latest blue-chip natural history series. Production has started in 2019, unfortunately, I can’t disclose much more, except that production will go on throughout 2020 until 2021. Stay tuned!

2019 highlights ended for us with the red-carpet premiere of feature film #paradisewar @zurichfilmfest, which we worked on most of 2017 and early 2018, and which according to Chief Film Critic Fionnuala Halligan @finnhalligan of @Screendaily “comes in the shape of an impressive location shoot”.

Green Carpet Zurich Film Festival 2019 – Paradise War

There have been many other productions @AsiaFixer handled in 2019 and we would like to say a big THANK YOU to all commissioners, producers and crew, who put their trust in AsiaFixer.TV.

We wish you all a creative and productive 2020.

Updated 16 April 2020:

Things change so quickly and 2020 brought us the COVID19 mess and with it unprecedented chaos in the production industry. We wish everyone out there a quick recovery and stay safe!

Did you know that the family of the Lampyridae, or fireflies, consist of around 2000 different species? Well, I also only found out about this when I was asked to scout locations to film fireflies for a high-end natural history production from the UK.

Most fireflies are nocturnal and produce bioluminescence to attract a mate. In large aggregations, this can result into an amazing light spectacle, especially on new moon nights. In the past, filming this spectacle was a frustrating endeavour, but modern digital camera technology has given us incredible sensitive sensors, picking up even the slightest amount of light. In fact, too much light in form of light pollution coming from urban areas, roads, airports, even offshore oil rigs, seems to be the bigger problem these days as many astrophotographers surely will confirm you.

Fireflies filming in Borneo

Scouting firefly locations sounded like an easy task, but I realised very quick that so many factors had to be right to provide the ideal conditions for that perfect “wow” scene.

Borneo’s fireflies move from one area to another; so the one tree with that very large aggregation you carefully scouted last month might not be suitable anymore by the time the production crew arrives.

Fireflies change their activity levels depending on temperature and humidity; one of the best conditions for filming I found to be right after a heavy tropical rainfall, just after sunset, on a new moon night!

There are some tricks to attract firefly males towards your camera using a small blinking LED lights imitating either a female or another male who has successfully mated (I’m not sure which one it is?). The problem is you have to get the blinking frequency, light output intensity and colour, as well as colour temperature just right, and every species (or even every population?) seems to have its own combination. But with a lot of different green and yellow filters and plenty of trial and error, you will eventually be able to fool them.

The best firefly locations in Borneo are in mangrove areas, which are known to be infested with mosquitos. You can’t use insect repellent as it will repel the fireflies too, so you have to cover every inch of your body or you will get eaten alive.

Some of these mangroves also are inhabited by crocodiles, something to keep in mind while watching over your day to night time-lapse just next to the river’s edge.

Recently I was assigned to find a suitable location in the Coral Triangle for a new “survival show” to be produced for a major broadcaster. In each episode the presenter was to be dropped alone into a remote, “extreme” location, carrying little more than the clothes he is wearing and a camera to film himself. His challenge would be to navigate and survive a treacherous journey to an extraction point 10 days ahead without any direct help or support. During his journey, he will have to lean on his experience in survival to find water, forage, hunt and trap for food, find materials to make a fire, and find or build a shelter.

I was looking for a location which conformed to a number of requirements:

The location is to provide enough features to provide the presenter with a reasonable chance to complete his challenge.

The visual aspect of the environment is a major consideration. We aim for big vistas and visually different terrain; drop-off point and extraction point need to be visually very different.

The journey needs to be inspiring and possibly involve local myths and stories.

The terrain had to be accessible for a Medevac team with a guaranteed means of escape for safety and medical support in case of an emergency.

A “back-up and emergency crew” base needs to be within hours reach and mobile enough to adapt to the presenters’ movements.

The presenter should be in isolation and not encounter any people while on his journey.

All permits, including for the presenter to hunt and forage, needs to be cleared in advance.

It all has to be made possible within a given budget.

I have been living, travelling, working and most importantly building up a network of people throughout Southeast Asia for almost two decades, an asset which proves indispensable when scouting for new filming locations. As always, I started compiling a list of locations I had in mind and crossed off the ones which I knew would not be able to fulfil safety requirements or be within budget. For the remaining locations on the list, initial inquiries, discussions with local contacts and research on permits was made until I finally ended up proposing four different locations; one in Malaysia (on Borneo), one in the Solomon Islands and two in Indonesia.

The executive producer made up his mind in a matter of days and approved the needed budget to scout the location, and just two weeks later I’m sitting on an aeroplane bound for West Papua in Indonesia.

Meetings with provincial government officials, suppliers, transport operators confirmed that permits and logistics were feasible. We established possible Medevac solutions and inspected hospitals, checking for details such as the right anti-venoms in case of snake bites.

Pristine Rivers in West Papua

Rainforest streams in West Papua.

Human remains placed in a small cave along the coast.

In addition to a comprehensive location scouting report, I always provide visual documentation in the form of videos and photographs to our clients. This also means that sometimes I have to try out myself the various challenges the location might provide.

After 7 exhausting days exploring pristine rivers and rainforest teeming with birdlife, beautiful mangrove forests and lagoons, scenic karst mountains, unique fjord-like bays, marine lakes and massive caves, I was convinced that we have found the right place for the program.

Note: Since the program hasn’t been announced yet by the broadcaster, we are not allowed to disclose the name of the program nor the exact location.

Eric Madeja / AsiaFixer.TV can be hired as a location scout in Malaysia, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Vietnam and The Solomon Islands.